Dyna
ISSN: 0012-7353
[email protected]
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Colombia
Suárez Burgoa, Lúdger O
Editor’s Page: Computerized mathematical typography at the scientific journals
Dyna, vol. 80, núm. 178, marzo-abril, 2013, pp. 151-152
Universidad Nacional de Colombia
Medellín, Colombia
Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=49626817020
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DEL EDITOR
COMPUTERIZED MATHEMATICAL TYPOGRAPHY AT THE
SCIENTIFIC JOURNALS
TIPOGRAFÍA MATEMÁTICA COMPUTARIZADA EN LA
REVISTAS CIENTÍFICAS
LÚDGER O. SUÁREZ-BURGOA
Ph.D., Assistant Professor Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Medellín, [email protected]
The Scientific Journals is a general scientific publication
of the area of technological sciences that presents
the works in the area of engineering, sciences, and
technology [9].
Therefore, this kind of journal requires most of the
times special scientific symbols, mostly for: math,
physics, chemistry, and geology for example. This
implies that the main text font should be compatible
with the mathematical symbols, Greek font, mathitalics, and other symbols; and specially that all
published articles may seem to look similar when
presenting those symbols. Even more important, when
this Journal suggest follow some standards when
dealing units (i.e. the International Units standard) and
references (i.e. the NTC-5613 and NTC-4490, or ISO
690 and ISO 690-2 bibliographic standards).
Mathematical Typography (MT) is a branch of the
applied mathematics that allows to rightly dispose
printing material in accordance with an specific purpose
to aid to the maximum the reader’s comprehension of
a text through mathematical algorithms. The term is
being part of the mathematics thesauri under the code
68U15 of the Mathematics Subject Classification.
In [7] is clearly discussed about the terms mathematics
and typography, and the close relation between both
terms. Then, Computerized Mathematical Typography
(CMT) is the use of computer science to perform MT.
The father of this mathematical branch, Donald E.
Knuth, started to develop it after considering the
cumbersome mechanical typesetting processed used
thirty three years ago. He wrote in one of his firsts
articles about it: “Mathematics books and journals do
not look as beautiful as they used to. It is not that their
mathematical content is unsatisfactory, rather that the
old and well-developed traditions of typesetting have
become too expensive.” [5].
Nowadays typesetting is computerized, it is performed
in 80% (or more) by the author and the rest 20%
is performed by the editor. As being so, nowadays
typesetting is no more an expensive task but it has
many actors from which it depends on; actors with
different knowledge, preferences, ideologies, and also
obstinacy. Therefore, typesetting in journals is still a
difficult task for editors, and if a straight policy does
not exist, scientific documents will still not looking as
beautiful as they used to.
One solution to that situation has been to implement
and offer demanding –but at the same time flexible–
format templates, in order to cover all the possible
requirements of users. This has been achieved partially
by implementing high level computerized mathematical
typography (typesetting) programs and its templates.
Many high quality journals require their authors to
submit their articles written at the appropriate and
specific typesetting program: i.e. programs based on
the free-of-freedom source TeX computerized language;
and they offer pre-formatted documents styles (i.e.
files with extension sty) or documents classes (i.e. files
with extension cls) in order to have uniformity in all
their articles.
Dyna, year 80, Nro. 178, pp. 151-152. Medellin, April, 2013. ISSN 0012-7353
152
Suárez-Burgoal
For example: the American Mathematical Society
offers the amsart.cls file, Springer Verlag offers the
SVJour3.cls file for some of their journals, Elsevier
offers the elsarticle.cls file also for some special
journals; the Journal of the American Metereological
Society consider its ametsoc.sty file, the Journal of
the American Astronomical Society the aastex.cls, the
Geophysical Journal International the GJI.cls file, etc
(at [10] one will find out a more exhaustive list of all
journals that offers pre-formatted documents styles or
documents classes, and accept articles written in TeX
engines for submission).
The many advantages on using TeX for scientific
manuscripts can be found in references, e.g. [8]. Also,
there are enough references of books in many languages
that are dedicated to learn TeX; e.g. [6], [4] and [1]. In
addition, in [2] one will find out an article about the
advantages and limitations publishers and authors will
have when adopting re-formatted documents styles or
documents classes under TeX engines. In [3] one will
find some recommendations about creating and using
TeX class files.
The Scientific Journals editors may be open to all
authors preferences; therefore, they should make efforts
to implement also articles written in any TeX engine, as
an another alternative of the what you see is what you
get (WYSIWYG) text processors.
If an author want to challenge the power of a TeX based
engine, then he can make use of a propossed LaTeX
template –created by the actual author– that is close
to the style used in all journals of the Universidad
Nacional de Colombia at Medellín, including the
Scientific Journals. This template is called the
unalmedStyleAr cle.cls file, which can be requested
by email to the author.
I hope that in the future, more of the Scientific Journals
authors can receive the benefits of this branch of
mathematics product!
REFERENCES
[1] Borbón, A. A. and Mora, F.W., Edición de textos
científicos con LaTeX: composición, diseño editorial,
gráficos, Inkscape, TikZ, presentaciones beamer, 2 ed. Mate,
San José de Costa Rica, Feb. 2012.
[2] Feruglio, G.V., Do journals honor LaTeX submissions?
TUGboat 17 (2) pp. 191-199. 1996
[3] Flynn, P., Rolling your own document class: using LaTeX
to keep away from the dark side. The PracTeX Journal 4
(33), 2006
[4] Grätzer, G., More math into LaTeX, 4 ed. Springer Verlag,
New York, 2007.
[5] Knuth, D., Mathematical typography. Bulletin of the
American Mathematical Society 1, 2 (Mar 1979), pp. 337372. 1979
[6] Krantz, S., Handbbook of Typography for Mathematical
Sciences. Chapman & Hall/CRC, Boca Ratón, FL, 2001.
[7] Lawrence, R., Maths=typography? TUGboat 24(2), pp.
165-168. 2003.
[8] Taylor, P., Computer typesetting or electronic publishing?
new trends in scientific publication. TUGboat 4, pp. 367381, 1996.
[9] UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE COLOMBIA. Dyna,
2012. http://www.revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/dyna/
index.
[10] Valiente, G., Journals that admit LaTeX, 2012. http://
www.lsi.upc.edu/~valiente/journals.html.